RECENT LETTERS

January 6, 2007

Dear Mr. Casselman,

I was given your original Canadian Sayings volume for Christmas. What a trip down memory lane!  I grew up in rural northern Alberta about 60 to 50 years ago and my father, who would be 100 next year if he were still alive, had the most amazing repertoire of sayings of anyone I have ever met. I still use many of them -- which earns the respectable professor that I now am some strange looks sometimes. The family has been collecting them for many years and before reading your book, we had between 350 and 400 -- not the 1200 of your first volume but, hey, it was one person and we are relying on memories that have to go back a long way. Dad died in 1967. Your book has added probably another 50. I am going to order the later volumes right away!

I recall some of your sayings in a somewhat different form from the one’s given in your book. I expect that this is inevitable -- there is no manual of canonical forms of these sayings. But I wonder if you'd be interested in the variations?

Great book! I agree with you about the importance of making a permanent record of such things. Television has wiped out so much of our Canadian folk heritage.

Andrew Brook
Chancellor's Professor of Philosophy
Director, Institute of Cognitive Science
Carleton University
Ottawa ON , Canada

Dec. 27, 2006

Dear Mr. Casselman,

I'm Fabrizio Costantini from Rome, Italy. I've read your article about the origin of the word wop in your Wording Room.

You say not to believe in the origin from the Italian guappo because of the hard g at the beginning of the word: the pronunciation should be gwappo, you say, and you're right, but that's the polite Italian pronunciation. In Naples dialect (a lot of Italian migrants were from Naples ) the pronunciation is wappe, so I think that the Italian origin theory should not to be discarded.

Regards,
Fabrizio Costantini

January 4, 2007

Dear Mr. Casselman,

While browsing your site, I found in the page titled “Merry Christmas in many languages” for Thailand the phrase “Sawadee Pee Mai.”   Although you have already remarked “and in some languages Happy New Year.” for clarification’s sake, may I suggest that you place an asterisk after the country’s name, such as for Thailand , where the phrase stated is Happy New Year.

Although you are probably aware that “Sawadee Pee Mai” means Happy New Year in Thai - for “Merry Christmas” - if indeed you want the Thai phrase, it should be “Sook Sun Wun Christmas”, but most of the time we just say “Merry Christmas”.  Or, if it were to be entirely in Thai, a colleague has suggested that the phrase “Sook Sun Wun Phra Christ Som Pob” may also be used.  Broken down, this phrase can be translated as follows: (please excuse me for not remembering phonetics)

“Sook Sun” pronounced, respectively, like took and fun in English, is a greeting used to verbally infer good wishes for a particular occasion such as for birthdays well-wishing.

“Wun” pronounced like “fun” in English, means Day.

“Phra Christ” the “ph” in “phra” is pronounced with a soft “p” and “Phra” will sound like “pra” as in “Prada”, and for the word Christ, the “i’ here is pronounced like “it” to sound like “crit” (as is in hematocrit).   This means Jesus Christ.

“Som Pob” both words pronounced to sound like Home (but a shorter “o” sound).   This means “birth”, but using a rather “higher” Thai word.

Altogether, the phrase would mean “Greetings for the Day of the Birth of Jesus Christ”

Just a suggestion for you, sir.

Regards,

Jiravich Nathalang

Letters from November 2007

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Please email me at wordguy@shaw.ca

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